Summary: Whether it was a stroke of luck or pure coincidence that he had chosen to rest in a tree overlooking the front yard of Number Four of Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey was something that mattered little to him, though it would later be the subject of a vicious debate. What did matter was that the child had been left on the doorstep of Number Four with little more than a baby blanket and a letter on a night that promised rain. That mattered a lot, and it was unforgivable.

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns all of Harry Potter, its characters and most of the dialogue within this chapter. Kyrios, however, is all mine. I make no money off of Harry Potter.

The Boy Who Lived

Whether it was a stroke of luck or pure coincidence that he had chosen to rest in a tree overlooking the front yard of Number Four of Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey was something that mattered little to him, though it would later be the subject of a vicious debate. He had grown tired from his flight over the Atlantic Ocean and had decided a stopover in the South Eastern part of England would do him some good. Sure, there were better ways of traveling than in the form of a Large Flying Fox, but he preferred the freedom of spreading his wings, even if it shouldn't be possible for that particular breed of bat.

He wasn't just any old bat. No, he was Kyrios, a vampire. The strongest there was, known only to the various types of vampires that inhabited the world. Not even the magical folk knew of him, though there were likely myths and legends that had been crafted from the stories that had been passed down by word of mouth from his earlier years of his vampire life. Even the humans had some legends and myths that alluded to him, particularly in Greece, his birth land.

Hung upside down on one of the tree's thicker branches, he was about to go to sleep when something appeared out of nowhere in the near vicinity. His senses were excellent and a source of pride for him, and he tensed when this new presence began approaching his direction. Kyrios waited with bated breath, prepared to strike should this be an attempt on his life when a cat, and nothing more, walked into his field of vision.

He stared at the cat for a long moment, watching as it looked up at the street sign on the corner of the street some twenty feet away from the animal, and a bit more from him, to read the lettering on the sign that denoted the street as Privet Drive. That was a bit odd for a cat nowadays. Staring at the animal harder, he noticed that the air around it seemed to shimmer a little with something he hadn't come across in a very long time. Magic. The cat was one of those magical people able to take on the form of a singular animal.

From within the depths of Number Four came something of a slight ruckus, causing Kyrios' ears to twitch and his attention to go to the front door of the dwelling. The cat seemed to notice the ruckus as well and had jumped up onto the low brick wall that enclosed the front yard of Number Four. Both watched as the front door opened and a rather portly man with short, slicked down blonde hair and a mustache waddled out onto the stoop. He closed the door with a bit of a bang and walked over to the gate that let out onto the driveway where he got into his car, his great weight causing the vehicle to groan a bit and lean towards that side.

His gaze going back to the cat, he watched it as it watched the human start up the car and drive away from the home. How curious. Ignoring his primary reason for having landed in the tree, not that he truly needed to sleep to rest up from the start, he decided that watching the cat would prove much more interesting, as well as probably informative.

Eventually sometime after the portly man had left, a tall and rather thin woman with a child that oddly resembled a beach ball in size, left Number Four. The cat seemed to stiffen and must have been glaring at the two as the child screamed for sweets and kicked at his mother while they walked down the street. He felt a bit repulsed by the child's actions, but even more so towards the parents for allowing the child to act in such a way. The mother didn't even do anything to dissuade from the screaming and kicking, instead promising the very sweets the child was screaming for.

How abhorrent. Kyrios thought as he let his attention return to the cat, who was watching the two until they disappeared. Once the cat could no longer see them it visibly relaxed but didn't seem intent on moving from the low wall. Was there some sort of business this magical had with the Number Four household?

Hours and hours would pass before he found out, the residents of Number Four all having returned, carried out the rest of their day and went to sleep. Precisely one hour after the three had gone to sleep another person appeared right at the corner of Privet Drive. He could see them quite clearly from his branch, and it was an old man dressed quite oddly in a long, flowing purple robe? Kyrios blinked at this, his head tilting slightly as he took in the pointed high-heeled boots that were peeking out from the hem of the robes, which were covered in silver stars. This magical human had a long white beard, a twice-crooked nose and he wore crescent moon shaped glasses. Behind those glasses were blue eyes that twinkled with a sort of wrongness to them.

The oddly dressed magical man fished around in his robes and after a moment or two he pulled out a cylindrical silver device that rather resembled a lighter. Instead of a flame appearing, each time the little device clicked one of the street lamps on Privet Drive went out and a small glowing orb was swallowed up by the device. One by one he put out the street lamps until there was but the light of the moon and the stars to hopefully guide their sight.

A glance at the cloudy sky overhead, that threatened to give way to rain later on in the evening, made it apparent that they would not be using moonlight or starlight to see. Instead, there came a thin sort of stick from the man's robes and the tip of it lit up as he approached Number Four. The man paused to stare at the cat before an amused smile graced his weathered features.

"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall," the old man addressed the cat in a slightly amused tone.

The cat, McGonagall, gave the old man a baleful glare and leapt off of the low brick wall to the sidewalk. Mid leap the cat shifted into a stern looking woman dressed in green tartan robes. Her hair was still dark, though streaked with bits of gray, and pulled back into a rather severe bun. Minerva's lips pursed and became a thin line as she resumed her baleful glare. "How did you know it was me?"

"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly." The man gave a more benign smile, though that too was setting off Kyrios' senses and instincts.

"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," McGonagall replied a bit tartly.

"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here." Celebrating? What would they be celebrating? There were no holidays that he was aware of. Samhain had already passed. Maybe it had something to do with the magical humans only. McGonagall's reaction seemed to disagree though, for she sniffed angrily.

"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right." Her tone was impatient and her anger flaring. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no—even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." With this she jerked her head towards Number Four's darkened living room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls…shooting stars… Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent—I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."

Muggles? That was a term he'd never come across before. With a glance at Number Four he figured that it meant that they were non magical, though it sounded kind of discriminatory, as well as highly derogatory. As for what all had been on the news, he had been so focused on the cat, on McGonagall, that he hadn't heard any of it. The non-magical humans hadn't been all too interesting to him.

"You can't blame them," the old man said in a gentle tone, as though he truly meant it. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."

Kyrios found himself blinking at that. He hadn't been in Great Britain for a long while, so he didn't understand what was going on. Maybe listening in further would help.

"I know that." McGonagall was getting more irritable, her anger spiking. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors."

Really now? He hadn't noticed any of that, and certainly none of that had occurred on this street. The only thing of interest had been McGonagall, and now this old man who he still had no name for.

McGonagall gave the old man a sharp glance at this point, as though she were hoping for him to have something to say on the matter, but he maintained his silence. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"

That was quite an odd name, and even odder was the whole 'You-Know-Who' business. Kyrios certainly didn't know who and hoped that these magicals would reveal who 'You-Know-Who' was. It was also funny that McGonagall seemed to be fretting about the non-magicals finding out about them when he had by simply staying in this tree.

"It certainly seems so." The man now named as Dumbledore said quite simply. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"

That was quite random. Even McGonagall seemed to share his sentiment, though hers might have been simply out of naïveté as she exclaimed, "A what?"

"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of." Dumbledore started fishing in his robes for a said lemon drop.

"No, thank you." McGonagall's tone was icy, and it was obvious that she thought that now wasn't the time for a lemon drop. The discussion between the magicals had been rather important, or at least that was how it sounded. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone—"

"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense—for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort." It was at the name, Voldemort, that McGonagall flinched, though Dumbledore, who was busy unsticking two of his precious lemon drops he had fished out of his robes, seemed not to notice her reaction. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."

Voldemort sounded like a French name. Translating it into English gave him the meaning of 'flight from death' which truly made this Voldemort seem like a coward. It couldn't have been his proper name, but it was something to now identify him with. Given that he seemed to be a local magical problem, Kyrios was certain that he had never heard of him at all.

"I know you haven't." McGonagall sounded as though she were torn between two different emotions, exasperation and admiration. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know-oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."

Kyrios blinked a bit at that then proceeded to stare harder at this Dumbledore fellow, wondering just how a rather old looking man provoked such a strong fear in someone who seemed to be quite feared himself. He certainly didn't see it, though something was very off with the old man, and it wasn't provoking fear in the bat-formed vampire. Instead, it was giving him the urge to attack.

"You flatter me." Dumbledore said that way too calmly for Kyrios to like. "Voldemort had powers I will never have." That sounded like a lie.

McGonagall seemed to buy the lie, however. "Only because you're too—well—noble to use them."

"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs." Dumbledore wasn't blushing, not a tiny bit. Instead, he seemed rather pleased with himself that the Professor seemed to think so highly of him.

McGonagall's gaze sharpened as she stared at Dumbledore, though she couldn't see the lack of a blush in the darkness. "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"

Holy hell, this woman had a lot of questions. Questions that he also wanted answers to. Kyrios shifted slightly on the branch he was hanging from, growing restless as the conversation carried on. Dumbledore studiously ignored McGonagall as he unstuck yet another lemon drop, which was starting to irritate him quite a bit too.

"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are—are—that they're—dead."

Dumbledore lowered his head, drawing a gasp from the Professor, followed by a sob.

"Lily and James…I can't believe it…I didn't want to believe it… Oh, Albus…" She pressed a hand over her heart while Dumbledore merely reached over and patted her on the back.

"I know… I know…" Albus Dumbledore got points for making a rather believable grieving countenance, as well as for the heavy way he stated that.

"That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potters' son, Harry. But—he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke—and that's why he's gone." Her voice trembled as she spoke, tears wetting her cheeks. Dumbledore nodded, his face a perfect picture of glumness. "It's—it's true? After all he's done…all the people he's killed…he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding…of all the things to stop him…but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"

This read oddly to Kyrios. From what it sounded like Harry Potter was a young magical child. His parents, James and Lily, were more than likely magical as well with how familiar McGonagall seemed with them. Voldemort, according to these two magicals in front of him, was rather powerful, so it made little sense that a young child would be able to do anything to him. There was more missing from the story, which he figured involved the parents having something to do with this Voldemort's demise.

"We can only guess." Well, that confirmed as much for Kyrios. "We may never know." Another lie. Dumbledore did seem to know what it was, but he was unwilling to share the information.

McGonagall produced a handkerchief which she used to wipe her eyes and cheeks, shifting her spectacles out of the way to do so. Meanwhile, Dumbledore pulled a golden watch from within his robes and observed it for a few moments. Once he was finished he put it away and looked towards the sky. "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"

"Yes," McGonagall sniffed, wiping a bit more at her eyes. "And I don't supposed you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?"

"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now." In the safety of the darkness Dumbledore gave a peculiar smile, one that had Kyrios' back up.

"You don't mean—you can't mean the people who live here?" McGonagall straightened up immediately, having nearly the same reaction that he was, while pointing at Number Four. "Dumbledore—you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son—I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!"

It had been a rather abhorrent display, and like McGonagall, he wouldn't dare leave a child here for these non magicals to deal with, especially if the child were magical like this Harry Potter seemed to be.

"It's the best place for him." Dumbledore's tone was firm and one that brooked no arguments. This man was apparently used to getting his way, all of the time. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."

A letter? He wasn't going to knock on their door and explain to them why they would be receiving a child in the dead of night? It was a cold and callous maneuver on Albus Dumbledore's part. Kyrios had heard enough that he truly wanted to intervene.

"A letter?" McGonagall echoed his thoughts perfectly, her voice faint as she sat down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous—a legend-I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day in the future—there will be books written about Harry—every child in our world will know his name!"

"Exactly. It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can't you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?" Dumbledore's voice was calm, his tone coming off as a little condescending while he explained something that should have been obvious to McGonagall.

For her credit, McGonagall opened her mouth to argue then closed it and swallowed down her anger. "Yes—yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?"

"Hagrid's bringing him." Dumbledore stated that like it should have also been obvious.

"You think it—wise—to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?" From how she said it, this Hagrid person didn't sound very trustworthy to be bringing what sounded to be like a very young child, an infant almost, to Privet Drive.

"I would trust Hagrid with my life." That sealed it for Kyrios. Hagrid was not someone he would trust, not with someone who was this crafty and cunning vouching for him.

"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place." McGonagall's voice was a tad bit grudging as she spoke of this Hagrid person. "But you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to—what was that?"

Kyrios and McGonagall seemed to hear it first. A low rumbling sound that filled the air. As it grew closer Dumbledore finally seemed to notice it and the two magical humans looked up and down the street while the vampire looked up at the sky. He watched as the oddest thing, a huge flying motorcycle with an even larger passenger astride it, descended from the sky. The rumbling grew to a loud roar as the magical humans finally looked up. The motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them, the man driving it much larger than even himself in his humanoid form.

Hagrid, if that was who he was, was twice as tall as Kyrios was, and close to five times as wide. He had a wild look about him, his hair a long, bushy black mess of tangles, and a beard that hid most of his face. His hands were bigger than the lids of a metal trash can and his feet in what only could be custom made leather boots were the size of dolphin calves. In his vast arms he held a tiny bundle of blankets which Dumbledore eyed.

"Hagrid." Dumbledore looked and sounded rather relieved, though it was likely due to the bundle that the giant of a man held. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"

"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, Sir." Hagrid moved slowly and carefully to get off of the bike, taking care to not jostle the bundle, Harry Potter, that he held. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir."

"No problems, were there?" Kyrios stared at the old man's back at that question. A flying motorcycle, borrowed from some Sirius Black, and a young boy whose parents were now dead? How were those not problems?

"No sir—house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol." Hagrid held the bundle out for Dumbledore and McGonagall to peer at. Inside of the blankets, and definitely fast asleep, was a little baby boy with a tuft of jet black hair. Underneath that tuft was a rather painful looking scar in the shape of a lightning bolt that was still oozing a bit of blood.

"Is that where-?" McGonagall's whisper was something he barely caught, though he had already concluded that the scar was where Voldemort's magic had struck the young Harry Potter.

"Yes. He'll have that scar forever." Dumbledore's eyes gleamed as he inspected the scar, or Kyrios imagined that they were gleaming.

"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?" It was such an innocent question, and it seemed well within Dumbledore's supposed great powers to do.

"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well—give him here, Hagrid—we'd better get this over with." It wasn't that he couldn't get rid of the scar. Dumbledore plainly admitted to as much that he wouldn't get rid of it. What a cruel thing to do to a young child. The scar looked like it hurt, and it was still bleeding.

Dumbledore took the bundled up Harry and began to carry him over to the stoop of Number Four. He actually paused mid-step just before Hagrid called after him with, "Could I—could I say good-bye to him, sir?" The old man gave a congenial smile and turned to let the giant man give Harry a kiss on the forehead. Immediately after that Hagrid began to howl, reminding Kyrios of a dog that had been wounded.

"Shhh!" McGonagall shushed Hagrid with a hiss, glancing round at the darkened houses and especially at Number Four. "You'll wake the Muggles!"

Nevermind the sleeping child. Let's not wake the non-magicals to let them discover your sordid affair. Kyrios thought bitterly, watching as the giant stammered out a reply only to be led away by McGonagall. Dumbledore resumed his walk towards the stoop, garnering the vampire's attention as he set the child down and tucked the letter into the boy's blankets. Once he rejoined McGonagall and Hagrid the three of them just stood there, staring at Harry in silence.

"Well, that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations." McGonagall seemed rather put out by Dumbledore's statements, but the magical woman was still staring at Harry on the stoop, her lower lip trembling.

"Yeah. I'd best get this bike away. G'night, Professor McGonagall—Professor Dumbledore, sir." Hagrid wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket then climbed back on to the bike. He kicked the engine into life and with a roar that should have woken the sleeping child, as well as the sleeping non-magicals in the area, it rose into the air and Hagrid flew off into the night.

"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall." Dumbledore gave another congenial smile and nodded at the upset woman who merely blew her nose in response. Eyes twinkling, he turned and walked back down the street where, when he reached the corner, he took the silver device back out from his robes. He clicked it once and all the street lamps lit back up, casting an orange glow over Privet Drive. He glanced back down the street to see the now cat-formed McGonagall turn a corner at the other end of the street. His gaze slid to the bundle of blankets, now barely visible but still on the stoop of Number Four. "Good luck, Harry," was murmured just before the man turned and with a swish of his equally purple cloak he winked out of existence.

Dropping down from the tree as he shifted back to his human form, which was truly only half of Hagrid's size, he landed in a crouch. He stood at about six foot one, had an evenly tanned tone to his skin and his dark hair was long, down to the middle of his shoulder blades and cut so that only there was a swath of it down the center of his head. McGonagall's presence had fully disappeared at this point, so he carefully got up and approached the low brick wall that separated Number Four and Number Six's yards. He stepped over it and quickly went over to the stoop where little Harry Potter still slept.

His hazel gaze swept over the babe's features, lingering on the still bleeding scar for a few seconds. It was disturbing. That Albus Dumbledore would practically abandon this child on his relatives' doorstep with little more than a blanket and a letter to explain his appearance was far more abhorrent than what he had witnessed of the family over the day. The scar would definitely need to be tended to, and while, as a vampire, he did drink blood, it wasn't such a necessity for him and the smell of it now wasn't even doing anything to him.

Kneeling down, he carefully eased the child into his well-muscled arms, his build easily matching that of a Greek statue. Harry didn't so much as make a sound as he held the boy to his chest, a long-forgotten feeling welling up in him. He remembered his own sons that he had held back when he had been human, and just as protective of them as he had been then did he feel the same for this Harry Potter.

He wouldn't dare leave this boy with the non-magicals that McGonagall had been so against him going to, regardless of them being his last living relations. They were more likely to harm the boy, and Kyrios was not one to let a child suffer at the hands of others. "I'll protect you, Harry Potter, with my life and all of the power at my disposal." Surprisingly there was a bright flash that enveloped them, which had him squeezing his eyes shut temporarily. A warmth seemed to suffuse in him, one that radiated love and acceptance. The love was directed toward the boy, that much he was able to tell, and he seemed to tingle a bit as the warmth faded. Opening his eyes, he gazed down at the child in wonder, starting to think that maybe he was a bit wrong about what had happened with Voldemort.

Thunder sounded overhead, followed by a brief flash of lightning, and the rain began to fall. Cursing under his breath, he took off the simple dark brown jacket he had been wearing and wrapped the still sleeping Harry in it, giving him an extra layer of protection. Once that was taken care of he made his way out of the yard with Harry. Little Whinging was thankfully just to the south of London, and he could travel at a fast enough pace that would see them in London and at a hotel in at least twenty minutes.

Whether it was a stroke of luck or pure coincidence that he had chosen to rest in a tree overlooking the front yard of Number Four of Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey was something that mattered little to him, though it would later be the subject of a vicious debate. What did matter was that the child had been left on the doorstep of Number Four with little more than a baby blanket and a letter on a night that promised rain. That mattered a lot, and it was unforgivable.